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The
Root Cellar
Recent
columns by Root Strikers
I
Don't Mind If You Keep Voting, But Do You Mind If I Keep Laughing While You
Do?
MUST
READ "I
don’t care who the candidate is. I
don’t care what issues to which he seems to gravitate.
I don’t care about his record, his leadership qualities, the
apparent first-lady-ness of his wife (or her husband), his insider-ness
or his outsider-ness, his race,
his height, his weight, how well he speaks, how wonderfully he
photographs, the nation of his birth, how likely it might be that he’s
fun to drink with, or his appreciation for unique uses for a fine
cigar." Column by Wilt Alston. (Editor's pick)
The
Meaning and Value of Gold
MUST
READ "Can
gold prevent such horrors [the
democide of the 20th Century]? No, not entirely, but gold can and does reduce
the likelihood of such horrors when used as a nation's money. Gold as
money provides a strong limiting factor on the resources available to
government, and in so doing, gold saves and improves the lives of millions."
Column by Glen Allport. (Editor's pick)
Not
to Worry, They're on Our Side
Recommended
"It’s pointless to look at their campaign platforms.
They’re made up of words, and words to a politician are like drops of
water on a hot skillet – they sizzle, then they’re gone.
We know a priori both candidates are certified, homogenized, lobotomized
statists, otherwise they wouldn’t be the two contenders." Column
by George F. Smith.
Making
Gang Rape Fair
"If
you vote, you deserve to get screwed, just on general principle.
If you vote, you are responsible for giving credibility to pure evil.
Voting is the same as saying, 'Yes dear, I know I caused you to hit me.
I promise to be better!'....voting and supporting the idea of
government is killing millions of people worldwide and enslaving most of the
rest." Column by Nonentity.
The
Seen and the Unseen of Drinking-Age Laws
"As
is so often the case, the alleged benefits of the existing policy come along
with a host of unintended consequences...." Column by Dan Coby
Shahar.
Are
You a Deathbed Libertarian?
"From
what I can gather, Hackworth and Paine had this much in common: They
saw the world with their own eyes. They were surely wrong about some
things, perhaps many things, but their loyalty to reality was seldom
breached. Their gods were
facts and logical argument, not authority." Column by
George F. Smith. (Editor's pick)
Notes
on Democracy: Mencken Vents His Spleen for His Era and Ours
Recommended
"Read onward as Mencken’s delightful microscope tears into the
presidencies of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and
Franklin Roosevelt with relish—exposing them and their adoring
constituencies for what they are. If Machiavelli took off our blinders and
exposed the rancid underbelly of tyrants in The Prince, Mencken did the same for democracy in this gem of a book."
Column by Lawrence Ludlow.
Everyday
Anarchy, Part 5
MUST
READ "When
we think of a truly free market...we understand that we do not have to work
for years and years, and give up thousands of hours and tens or hundreds of
thousands of dollars, to satisfy our wishes. If I want to shop for vegetarian
food, say, I do not have to spend years lobbying the local supermarket, or
joining some sort of somewhat ineffective advisory board, and pounding lawn
signs, and writing letters, and cajoling everyone in the neighborhood – all
I have to do is go and buy some vegetarian food...." Column by
Stefan Molyneux.
The
Loopy Dynamics of Feedback
Recommended
"In
any rational reality there would be some kind of reciprocity between the
actions of humans in relations with each other.
Somewhere along the line there arose the idea of 'sovereign immunity.'
And even though we realized a couple of centuries ago that the idea of
'sovereigns' having power over others is really, really stupid, we still think
it is all right for hired thugs to be completely devoid of any responsibility
for their actions." Column by Nonentity.
Jim
Rogers' Ultimate Road Trip
"I
did my note-taking while reading Jim Rogers’s book, Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip, which documents his
world-spanning odyssey at the turn of the century....it
holds you prisoner with fascinating detail and anecdotes written from a
perspective few of us will ever experience.
He also elucidates the political and economic background of the places
they visit from a refreshingly free-market, libertarian orientation."
Column by George F. Smith. (Editor's pick)
The
Railroad to Freedom
"Just
as a runaway slave would run from house to house to get to a
free state
, I have used the Internet to go from websites to blogs, to arrive at a
free state
of mind." Column by B.R. Merrick.
Even
Steven
"If
modern banking is an abomination, it is because modern money is an
abomination." Column by Paul Hein.
November
Games
Column
by Jim Davies.
The
Dangerous Question
"Indeed,
you could say that the radical is like a child in their endless questioning
and desire to learn and explore their world, combined of course with the hope
of building something new and better. Here
we see an obstinate mindset that demands integrity, as opposed to the
cognitive dissonance that the masses endure for the oppressors' benefit."
Column by Marcel Votlucka.
Everyday
Anarchy, Part 3
MUST
READ "The
statist looks at a problem and always sees a gun as the only solution – the
force of the state, the brutality of law, violence and punishment. The
anarchist – the endless entrepreneur of social organization – always looks
at a problem and sees an opportunity for peaceful, innovative, charitable or
profitable problem-solving." Column by Stefan Molyneux.
Spread this one far and wide.
Scapegoating
and the Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
MUST
READ
"...Americans, like most people, would rather not look too closely at
their unattractive traits. We like to pretend that we are self-sufficient,
honest people. But our desire to rely upon and preserve the welfare state
reveals the truth about who we really are. Instead of facing up to the theft
and self-deception that surround our support of the welfare state in its
various manifestations, we simply project
our traits onto people who seem different because they are poor and desperate
and have nowhere else to go to make a better life. Furthermore, when we accuse
these immigrants of 'breaking our laws' to come here, perhaps we should
remember that the kind of laws they are breaking are the kind that were firmly
in place in the Soviet Union before it fell – laws against making a profit,
earning a good living, and creating one’s own destiny. In other words: laws
against freedom." Column by new Root Striker Lawrence Ludlow.
Blame
Anarchism?
Recommended
"So what are the black-clad youngsters so filled with hatred and so prone
to destroy? They call themselves anarchists, but they are the embodiment of
the statist principle: 'do as I say – or else.' The masked hordes rioting
the streets calling for anarchy want
power; they want the power to do as they please, and they want the power
to separate action from responsibility. They want the freedom to act –
without consequence. They demand respect from others in the sense of fear,
obedience and subjection rather than appreciation and admiration; they
want to be the state and control its powers."
Column by Per Bylund.
I'm
an Anarchist, and I Don't Hate the Troops
Recommended
"But sometimes our prized objectivity blinds us to what everyone
else has been taught to see. We
don't understand that while we have overcome our indoctrination, others see it
as a source of meaning and structure, and still others live to defend that –
the cops and the soldiers that some hate for defending this system."
Column by Marcel Votlucka.
An
Open Letter to Voters: Please Don't
Recommended
"Like the man who bayonets a baby to save a city, when a man votes, he
necessarily approves of the means used to obtain his end. The means of
attaining any political end in a tax-based government is the coercion of tax
dollars from innocents: an act of aggression. Quite simply, if you vote, you de
facto support the infliction of violence upon your neighbors...."
Column by new Root Striker Geoff Turecek.
The
Anarchist Vote
MUST
READ "I like
this analogy because it reveals how voting is an act of submission: When
you no longer resist tyranny, but agree to submit to the threat or use of
force and do as you are told, when you no longer question the higher
authority because you are allowed to choose your supervisor.
In the process you condemn your offspring and future generations to
be subjects of this authority establishing an institution of tyranny that
eventually is accepted unquestioningly, perhaps even
celebrated." Column by Mark Davis.
The
Power to Get Away With It
Recommended
"Libertarians engaging in a political campaign to have someone elected
have from my point of view given up their claim on liberty; they are no longer
striving for liberty as number one, but are working to give someone power to
liberate them. Is this really a way forward? Is it to love liberty to give it
up?" Column by Per Bylund.
Danger
Is My Middle Name--And So Is Yours
MUST
READ
"Nothing is completely safe,
including eating and breathing. And if nothing is safe, then throwing people
in prison for doing something that endangers them is insane, even without
considering the dangers of arrest and imprisonment, which are substantial.
Using coercion to "save people" from their own choices is a huge,
horrifying mistake that can only lead to ever-larger disaster, because the
list of dangerous activities includes everything
that people might ever do." Column by Glen Allport.
A
Handout for Statists
Recommended
"Being offered a choice between two
violent alternatives is not the same as being free to choose....People can
only freely choose governments, if they have the choice not to choose governments." Column by Stefan Molyneux.
A
Stato-Libertarian Analysis of Immigration
Recommended
"Thus the argument for immigration
controls calls libertarian theory itself into question! On this
one issue, libertarianism does not work. On this one issue, apparently, a
libertarian (laissez faire)
immigration policy is ultimately bad for liberty!" Column by Wilt
Alston and Stefan Molyneux.
Money
Recommended
"Without the United States
federal government, the Fed would
not exist and the money used by Americans would be gold and silver – things
which could not be counterfeited constantly to supply 'money' for war, for
special interests, and for other groups and purposes opposed to the interests
of the average American. Nor would Americans be forced to literally borrow
money – money created from thin air – from a privately-owned central bank
(as our government does now) and then pay interest on it as part of the
national debt. What a scam!" Column by Glen Allport.
Missing
Bush
Recommended
"Have
you heard [Rudy
Giuliani]
talk? I can't endure it for a minute. I thought I hated hearing Shrub mutter.
But at least there's a strain of comedy value in the Babbling Bush. He sounds
kind of funny, like an evil but goofy clown. There's a chuckle to be had on
occasion. Even if it's black comedy.
Rudy
is just terrifying, not funny at all. His speech is just as incoherent, just
as sleazy, just as totalitarian as Bush's. But he comes off as even more
disjointed in his thinking with even a more maniacal drive toward fascist rule."
Column by Anthony Gregory.
The
Worst Way to Do Anything
Recommended
"What have we bought with all that money? Thousands of dead American
soldiers, many thousands more injured, 655,000 (and counting) dead Iraqis,
cancer-causing depleted uranium poisoning in Iraq (and DU particles are being
spread around the planet on the winds), a ruined Iraqi infrastructure (which
had already been wrecked in the first Gulf war and which a decade of sanctions
kept in poor repair), millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing the mess we have made
of their country, an increased threat of terrorism in America, widespread use
of torture by our own government, a sharply lower opinion of America by people
in other nations, and (on a separate invoice, for additional money) a police
state here at home."
Column by Glen Allport.
My
Son: Klan Reformer
MUST
READ "But
what you’re doing, what you’ve been doing for 20 years, is telling people
that the Klan can be good if only the right
person is in charge. You’re giving people false hope, because the Klan can never
be good." Column by Stefan Molyneux.
Man,
Family and State
Recommended
"Thus it must be that many
children are delivered into the public school system with their independence
already undermined, and filled with unease in the face of arbitrary authority.
This lesson can only have come from their parents." Column by
Stefan Molyneux.
There
Is No "I" in Democracy
Recommended
"There is no part of life too miniscule for a politician to get his nose
into if it smells faintly of funding or power, and nothing the whoring masses
won’t sell for a shiny new promise." Column by Retta Fontana.
The
Earthly Lesson of Jesus' Crucifixion
Recommended
"No: despite the famous 'washing of hands' by Pontius Pilate, this
horrifying, gruesome murder was at least semi-official policy, like so many
millions of other murders by empires and democracies and tin-pot dictatorships
throughout history. Jesus was murdered by Roman soldiers, and in such a way as
to drive the point home to all who saw it, or who even heard rumors about it: We
can do this to anyone we want, anytime we choose, and talking about love is as
good a reason to kill you as any – especially if others start taking you
seriously. We are in charge of your life, and the penalty for
forgetting that is death. Fear us and obey, or die."
Column by Glen Allport.
Peace
Recipe
Recommended
"The apparatus of
the state is a machine designed to place an artificial barrier between human
beings, thereby enhancing the need for more government.
When we refuse to participate in the pretense, the machine stalls.
It has no fuel to run on if humans refuse to be grist for its mill.
It’s like Toto pulling back the Wizard’s curtain to reveal the
frail, ignorant, old guy who doesn’t know how to get home, either."
Column by Retta Fontana.
Shut
Up About the 'Bill of Rights' and Play the Ace
Recommended
"Anarchists
view rights as ethical truths that transcend states, statesmen, and time,
and that exist independent of historical circumstance; and anarchists must
present this view unabashedly, clearly, and without equivocation, to
critics and would-be converts alike. If
we appeal to “Bills of Rights,” it will look like we don’t truly
believe in the natural, transcendent status of rights and
liberty." Column by Thomas Van Wyk.
E-Passport:
Doorway to the Panopticon
MUST
READ "The logistics of trying to interconnect 189 governments’
databases quickly escalates well beyond the realm of 'nightmare'
into some kind of Lovecraftian singularity of technological
horror." Column by Scarmig.
Importing
Freedom
MUST
READ "Immigrants
weren’t in charge when we lost our freedoms. White guys were.
Millions of 'illegal immigrants' threaten you somehow? Compared to your
neighbor who votes Democrat or Republican and demands his Social Security? Puh-lease!"
Column by Stefan Molyneux and (new Root Striker) Wilton Alston.
A
Short Guide to Market Anarchy Deconversions
Recommended
"[Market anarchy] means
everyone is allowed to live the way they want, according to their value
system. Everyone has different value systems, and all that statism does is
impose the ruling class value system over everyone, creating social warfare.
In an M.A., there would be no more need for social warfare because everyone
would be free to live the way they want." Pamphlet by Andrew Greve,
Aaron Kinney, David Pearson and Francois Tremblay.
The
Two Great Evils and the Hammer of Infinite Power
Recommended
"There is no doubt that the
Hammer of Infinite Power is coming; the leading edge is already here. It smote
Hiroshima
and
Nagasaki
in 1945. If the power to vaporize
a city with a single bomb is not sufficiently god-like for you, just wait."
Column by Glen Allport.
Murdering
the Group, Saving Individuals
MUST
READ "It’s the
same with immigration, the national debt, welfare, the war on terror and all
the other state-driven and media-obscured questions of the day. Obsessed by
details, blind to the obvious, we are like swimmers in shark-infested waters
worrying about cramps." Column by new Root Striker Stefan Molyneux.
How
We Can Get There From Here
MUST
READ "So
the main task to be completed in my opinion is to so educate every member of
society one by one as to convince him that a zero government society is the
only kind consistent with his human nature and the only one that will maximize
his pleasure in life; and that must be done by
reason. So the two obstacles
to surmount are the vast numbers involved, and the ugly fact that most people
have been so well indoctrinated that they are barely open to reason; they live
rather by myth, prejudice and superstition." Column by Jim Davies.
Are
You a Submitizen?
MUST
READ "How
has it come that we no longer see each other as people? How can we reverse
this trend? The next time you are asked for identification, consider the
ramifications of participating in this system. Who owns you?"
Column by NonEntity.
The
Preamble Reconsidered
MUST
READ "And
so it was 'ordained and established'--the wind was sown. Today, we reap the
whirlwind." Column by Jim Davies.
Legalize
Methamphetamine!
MUST
READ "The
question of who gets to make decisions about the disposition of
certain property is central to understanding freedom.
Who gets to decide what activities are too dangerous for you?
Should I get to decide what activities are too dangerous for
you? What about your
neighbor? Or the majority? Or
the president? Or
Congress? Or some judge?
In a free society, the owner of the property gets to decide
how the property is used.
Because you own your body, I assert that you should decide
how your body is used or abused." Column by Marc Victor.
How,
Why?
MUST
READ "There
is a certain suspension of disbelief attendant to those social and political
theories endorsing endless and boundless murder, theft and fraud (i.e.
"statecraft"); one must believe, with the naive faith of a child who
believes that world hunger can be eradicated by making a law that everyone can
have ice cream for dinner if they want it, that one may kill the goose bearing
golden eggs and still have eggs every day for the taking. The iron laws
of time, human desire, and economics are in the process of refuting that
belief; its defense rings hollow, there are no believable Utopian adherents of
this philosophy anymore, only those that make no pretense about wanting to
kill millions of people and suck the marrow from their bones for the sake of
their own glorification and what they conceive of as a better world, organized
by boot heel and rifle butt." Column by Szechuan Death, who sounds
like a libertarian Mark Morford.
SpyChips:
How Major Corporations and Govt. Plan to Track Your Every Move With RFID
MUST
READ Chapter 1
of a new book by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre. You can buy the
book by clicking on the link at the end.
Defining
Anarchy
MUST
READ "To
define anarchy as statist-government failure is such an obvious distortion of
the concept of a free society that it is hard to decide where to begin to
dismantle such thoughtlessness. I
like to begin by simply pointing out that at least four layers of
statist-government agencies still claim jurisdiction over the area known as
New Orleans
(city, parish, state and federal). The
undeniable fact is that they all four failed to provide the services they had
promised to provide when they were justifying the theft of individual
resources called taxes." Column by Mark Davis.
Serene
Outlaw: Henry David Thoreau in His Second Century
MUST
READ "At
times, Thoreau thundered at his readers like a Calvinist preacher,
rhapsodized like an Indian prophet, stung like a gadfly or chided their
sensibilities as a droll friend. The
odd collection of essayists who write for Strike The Root, and the thousands of
readers who peruse the columns there may hardly reflect on the moralist under
whose portrait their work appears, but by striving to write essays on a variety
of topics, many of them dedicated to the rights of individuals, they keep his
standards alive."
Column by Doug Herman.
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